ProAxsis Limited (www.proaxsis.com), the Belfast-based respiratory diagnostics company, is delighted to announce it has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with the global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. ProAxsis will take responsibility for completing the validation and global commercialisation of a SARS-CoV-2 (the virus associated with COVID-19) serology ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) developed by an internal research team at AstraZeneca. In return for providing access to the required intellectual property and technical know-how, AstraZeneca will receive an undisclosed royalty fee on future Global net sales of the assay.

Speaking about the agreement, Dr David Ribeiro, CEO of ProAxsis, commented:

“We’re excited to be involved with this assay to support such a key area of global healthcare need.  The research team at AstraZeneca have already completed significant optimisation and validation work, which has demonstrated the assay’s high potential sensitivity and specificity of detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. ProAxsis will extend this work to support the identification of people who have raised antibodies against this challenging virus.”

John Clarkson, Chairman of Netscientific plc and ProAxsis, added: “Expanding the product portfolio and customer service offering are stated goals for ProAxsis, so we’re delighted with the continued progress and reaching this mutually beneficial agreement with AstraZeneca. Following the huge impact of the coronavirus pandemic on society, it’s excellent news that we can play our part in the COVID-19 response and help deliver real benefits to the community, through the application of ProAxsis’ expertise in respiratory assays.”

Ruth March, SVP, Precision Medicine, AstraZeneca said: “The development of this serology ELISA by our team is another example of AstraZeneca’s comprehensive response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This highly sensitive and specific blood test makes use of simple and convenient fingerstick sample collection that will be well suited to large scale deployment and has the potential to play an important role in antibody analyses in large populations.”

Any enquiries concerning ProAxsis’ work in respiratory diagnostics can be directed to info@proaxsis.com.

About ProAxsis

ProAxsis Limited is a commercial diagnostics company, based in Northern Ireland, and with a rapidly growing global client list of pharmaceutical companies and academic laboratories. The company has registered a CE Mark for activity-based immunoassays targeting Neutrophil Elastase (NE) and Proteinase 3, as biomarkers of lung infection and inflammation in chronic respiratory diseases such as COPD, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis. 

This technology has been translated into a point-of-care test (NEATstik®), to enable ongoing monitoring of active NE levels.  Recently published data has shown that measuring active NE levels using NEATstik® enables identification of patients with airway bacterial infection and those patients at highest risk of suffering pulmonary exacerbations over the subsequent 12 months. 

In addition to proteases, the company also has significant expertise in the measurement of other inflammatory biomarkers, including IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-alpha.  Grant-funded R&D funded projects for a variety of targets remain a key area of focus.

Aside from the provision of assays, ProAxsis can offer sample analysis at its purpose-built laboratory facility in Belfast and is currently supporting a number of pharmaceutical company-sponsored Phase I, II and III clinical trials.

ProAxsis is a fully owned subsidiary of Netscientific plc, the international life sciences and sustainability technology investment and commercialisation Group.